The devil is coming.

My new novel ‘The Devil’s Chamber’ will be published in February.  Here’s the blurb, and if you’re brave enough, the first chapter…

Miro McGarrity has built a successful life in Singapore, trying to forget the Scotland of his youth. But one afternoon he receives the news he has dreaded for twenty years – an email that takes him back to Edinburgh in 1999 and his first job in a sprawling council archive.

Over the course of a few weeks in that long-lost autumn, Miro fell under the spell of two urban explorers seeking a legendary underground room known as the Devil’s Chamber. This fragile alliance would lead him into the forgotten corners of the archives, into grungy pubs and derelict buildings, until finally, in the shadows under the city, they discovered the shocking truth behind the legend.

Now, after two decades of running away, Miro must return to the Devil’s Chamber to face his fate – but there might be one last chance of a way out…

*

Do you want to know more? 

Then come closer.

Sit here, where I can see you. 

Have a beer – no, I insist.  You’ll need it.

No, you can’t have a glass.  Just drink from the bottle.  What do you think this is, an ambassador’s reception?

[rolls eyes. sighs.]

Sorry, but I’ve been trapped with this story for four years, and now it’s burning to get out there.

Comfortable?  Then I’ll begin. 

*

PROLOGUE: SINGAPORE, 2019

The fire alarm wails – its pulsing siren is a needle in my brain. 

            Around me in the open-plan office, colleagues stand up, grumbling and stretching, grabbing their wallets and phones.  This will mean all of us trooping down twelve flights of stairs and stepping out into the courtyard in the blistering Singapore sun, waiting while the appointed ones with clipboards tick us off their lists.  But just as abruptly as it began, the alarm shuts off, and for a second I still hear its echo, feel that spike pushing through my eardrum. 

            “Just a test,” someone says.  The Singaporeans return to their desks quietly but from a few of the foreigners muttered swearwords are audible. 

When I turn back to my screen, I see the email drop into my inbox.  I only see the sender name and title but it’s enough.

I vomit chilli crab onto my desk.

            A hubbub explodes around me: shocked cries, a gasp, and a hooting laugh that can only be the Aussie IT guy.  I feel another heave building in my guts so I run to the bathroom.

            I get in a cubicle just in time to throw up second helpings.  After a few more retches I spit out the last strands and slowly get my breath back, forearms resting on the toilet seat, staring down at the puddle of pink soup.

            A knock on the door.  “Miro?  Are you OK?”

            The voice sounds like Warren Chang, one of the data analysts. 

            “Miro?  Do you need help?” 

            “It’s OK, I just need a few minutes.”

            “I already called the cleaner, Miro.  We are worried about you.”

            The big boss puking on his desk.  This is great for my career, if I still have a career or any kind of future on this planet.  I’m aware of my iPhone awkwardly pressing into my thigh, and realise I can read the email here in case there are any more bodily explosions. 

The bathroom door flops shut and I listen for any other signs of life.  None.

            I unlock the cubicle door and at the sink I wash my face and my forearms and hands.  I’m not ready to read the email yet.  My mouth still has the acidic tang of bile and I need some water, and a mint.

            In the mirror my eyes are red.  I don’t want to read this email cowering in a toilet cubicle.  I want to read it in the open, with a coffee and a view.  Die with my boots on.  I scrape a fleck of sick off my shirt collar with my fingernail, check again for any other spray-back, and then head out into the office. 

            The cleaner’s trolley is parked by my desk and a few heads turn in my direction.  I walk past reception to the other side of the office, see that the coffee area is mercifully empty, and grab an espresso and a bottle of water.  The boardroom was booked for my meeting with the CEO of Malaysia’s second largest snack company but he cancelled this morning so this is someplace I can go to be alone.  I step into its air-conditioned silence and drag one of the chairs over to the window.

            Twelve floors below, Singapore bustles.  In the business district the skyscrapers wall the streets in, snaring the traffic in one-way loops.  Pedestrians move in shoals along the narrow pavements, clutching umbrellas and takeaway lattes. 

            I down the espresso.  Combined with adrenaline, the caffeine glow amps up my heart so that I can feel its techno-beat high in my chest.  I take a slug of water, and another, washing away the puke taste.  It is time to read the email.

            I take out my iPhone, and there it is at the top of my inbox.

            The sender: Neve Pinkerton

            And the title, neatly summarising the thing that has kept me awake on hundreds of nights and kept me running around the world, always one step ahead of my biggest fear.

            The title.

            They Found Us